Dose calculation and treatment planning for the Brookhaven NCT Facility

Consistency of the calculated to measured fluxes and doses in phantoms is important for confidence in treatment planning for Boron Neutron Capture Therapy at the Brookhaven Medical Research Reactor (BMRR). Two phantoms have been used to measure the thermal and epithermal flux and gamma dose distributions for irradiations at the BMRR and these are compared to MCNP calculations. Since MCNP calculations in phantoms or models would be lengthy if the calculations started each time with fission neutrons from the reactor core, a neutron source plane, which was verified by spectrum and flux measurements at the irradiation port, was designed. Measured doses in phantoms are especially important to verify the simulated neutron source plane. Good agreement between the calculated and measured values has been achieved and this neutron source plane is now used to predict flux and dose information for oncologists to form treatment plans as well as designing collimator and room shielding. In addition, a program using MCNP calculated results as input has been developed to predict reliable flux and dose distributions in the central coronal section of a head model for irradiation by the BMRR beam. Dosimetric comparisons and treatment examples are presented

Reactions and moderators for an accelerator-based epithermal neutron capture therapy source for cancer treatment. Final report, October 1900--September 1994

The use of boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) has been considered for nearly 30 years, and been practiced in Japan since the late 1970`s. Early experiments in the USA were generally nonpromising. However, new boron-containing ligand compounds were developed, which would seek out brain tumors. Concentration levels of the order of 30 micrograms of boron per gram of tissue become possible, and interest in the BNCT technique was revived in the USA beginning about 1985, with research reactors as the obvious source of the neutrons for the treatment. However, the limited number of research reactors in the USA (and the world) would mean that this treatment modality would be quite limited. The goals of this work was: (1) Examine as many as possible reactions of charged particles on various targets of an accelerator, and determine those that would give high neutron yields of a convenient energy. (2) Determine, through calculations (using Monte Carlo stochastic computer codes), the best design for a moderator/reflector assembly which would give high thermal flux at a nominal 5 cm depth in the head of a patient, with minimal radiation dose from gamma rays and fast neutrons. (3) Perform a benchmark experiment using a positive ion accelerator. The Li-7(p,n) reaction was chosen for the benchmark, since it was readily available for most accelerators, and was one of the two highest yielding reactions from Task No. 1. Since the University of Missouri has no accelerator, possible accelerators at other universities were investigated, as to availability and cost. A unit having capability in the 2.5 MeV range was desired

Phased chopper at WNR

At WNR, a proportional-integral-derivative PID control system has been developed to hold a neutron chopper within the 128 ..mu..sec wide window allowed by LAMPF. After achieving this control, LAMPF is triggered from the chopper to limit the phase jitter between the LAMPF produced burst of neutrons and the chopper opening. This PID system has been tested for phase control, phase jitter and neutron control using a chopper spinning at 14,400 RPM. The results to date, which are discussed, indicate that a chopper can be phased to the neutron pulses produced by LAMPF to +- 0.5 ..mu..sec

Resonance-filtered beam spectrometer

A new inelastic neutron scattering spectrometer which operates in the range 1 eV to 15 eV has been developed at the Los Alamos pulsed spallation source WNR. Based on a nuclear resonance filtering the beam, the concept has been tested in direct, inverted and sample geometries. A number of resonance filters have been tested to determine their effectiveness. The spectrometer is described and examples of data are presented